Memento Mori
by DominoMags
Summary: His people once had a theory for why he traveled with so many lower beings. They believed it was a reminder of his own mortality, like how some would keep skulls around. There was truth to that. The Doctor sits alone, surrounded by other old things, ruminating on mortal matters.


The Doctor was tired. He had lived for centuries. He was at the beginning of a new regeneration cycle. He had seen things others would call miraculous or impossible. And yet, he had seen more death than he cared to remember. He had made so many friends and lost them just as easily. The weary stick insect of a man with grey curls and the fashion sense of a university professor had parked his ship somewhere. Where exactly, it didn't matter. Nardole would probably wander in to tell him, or nag him about something. He missed K9. The robot dog was certainly more agreeable than a doughy cyborg any day. Or maybe Frobisher. He should pay him a visit sometime.

All that mattered at this moment right now was a tired old man who wanted to reminisce, even if it hurt. He navigated endless corridors, past the larder, down the hall from the wardrobe. Did he even still have a zero room? It was hard to keep track, even if he did have schematics saved externally and internally. The old girl updated them regularly, even if she was getting up there in years. Many of his people would call a rickety type 40 obsolete. The Doctor called her vintage.

"Where did you put it, old girl." He whispered in his Glaswegian accent, gently asking his TARDIS where she put that room. With luck, he found a set of stairs, descending into the bowels of the ship. Two doors down and to the left, he found what he was looking for. The hallway was dimly lit, but he knew he had found his destination.

The door creaked open, revealing a storage room, accumulating a layer of dust. It was designed like a mausoleum almost, but in place of caskets, skulls, and urns, were various objects. He had several storage closets, filled with old bits of his wardrobe that he never got around to storing in the wardrobe roper, souvenirs from past adventures, and things left behind by people long gone. This room was more like the latter, but different.

The man walked solemnly, taking out a journal, identical to one that now rested in the largest library in the universe. This was his copy. It was how he kept up to speed with his wife. It felt like ages. It had been ages. He placed the book carefully on an empty shelf, labeled "River". As he placed the journal down, the Doctor stroked it lovingly, feeling a lone tear trail down his old cheek. There were several similar shelves. A broken star badge belonging to someone named Adric. Some childhood arts and crafts labeled "Amy". Lucie, Katarina, C'rizz, Tamsin, Sara Kingdom's gun, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Rory, Cinder. So many names, each with mementos attached to them.

The doctor sat in the middle of this room, on a little bench he set in the middle. This room needed a good cleaning. He valued every single object. He valued the memories they held, the people they represented. He had half a mind to dust it all off, or better yet, "I should have Nardole do it. Make himself useful, now that he has a proper body again." The Time Lord scoffed rather Scottishly. However, he couldn't bring himself to. He gazed at his hands. He couldn't help but think. "How long until this body wears thin? How long until someone new saunters off?" He chuckled to himself and shook his head, getting back up again.

"Good sulk. Might as well get on with things." He said to himself. He was a time lord. All of causality was his backyard. However, even if a new beginning was bound to happen eventually, an end was just as imminent, and would very well precede it. Perhaps the old man would find a new companion. New adventures. New friendships. However, those too would end. His people, the Time Lords, were lost to him once. He had brought them back, though that was a decision he still had conflicted feelings o. Those people he had left behind, time and time again, offered a theory. He remembered it vividly, despite it being lifetimes ago. They thought he took on these lower beings, these "companions" as a reminder of his own mortality: Memento Mori. They posited that these friendships were no more than a skull on a writing desk. Perhaps they were right.

One day, the old man would be reborn. Before that, he would die, just as he had before, and just as so many others had in his wake. Years turned into decades. Decades into centuries, and centuries into millennia. "One can forget a lot in that time." He uttered as he made his way out and closed the door.

He would never forget them. Not on this life, or any other.


End file.
